Awarded Grant

The Effect of State Minimum Wage Laws on Medicaid Expansion Outcomes (December 2016)

The goal of this study is to inform state-level policy discussions around whether minimum wage changes could have unintended consequences for workers’ health insurance access and to enable state policymakers to begin thinking about potential solutions. Over the past several years, there has been significant policy action regarding state minimum wage laws—with the federal minimum wage increasing by 40 percent between 2007 and 2010, and 15 states increasing their minimum wages above the federal requirement between 2010 and 2015. Higher minimum wages may affect employer-sponsored insurance enrollment if employers respond to wage increases by reducing benefit generosity, increasing employee contributions, or eliminating insurance entirely. Using data from the Current Population Survey, the researchers will estimate whether state minimum wage changes that occurred since 2007 were associated with reduced employer-sponsored insurance enrollment, and whether this effect was modified by Medicaid expansion.

The State Health Access Data Assistance Center (SHADAC) is a program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a part of the Health Policy and Management Division of the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota.